The Scoop on Groups

Woo to the hoo!  I'm so excited to be a contributing author of Me and My Gang! 
What a great place to come together as 2nd grade teachers and share our ideas, our successes, and our funny stories.  Of course, if you don't teach 2nd grade, you'll find AMAZING ideas there that you can easily tweak for your grade level. 

So since a bunch of us 2nd grade bloggers have come together at Me and My Gang to form a group, I thought my first post there should be about grouping.  I'm sure you've heard that "organizing students in heterogeneous cooperative learning groups at least once a week has a significant effect on learning."  Marzano sure knows his stuff!  Research has also shown that "low-ability students perform worse when grouped in homogeneous ability groups." (Kulik & Kulik)

As a classroom teacher, sometimes I forget all of the wonderfully fun ways there are to break my little rocket scientists into groups.  So to solve that problem, I compiled a bunch of grouping strategies and made a set of Grouping Cards.  These cards are going to help me quickly remember ways to break my kiddos into groups.  Most of them require minimal preparation that can be done once and then used again and again.  Here's how...


Print on card stock.

Laminate and cut out.  Punch a hole in the top left corner if you want to put them on a binder ring (which I will do when I get to my classroom).

You're ready to go! 

There are a couple of web sites you might want to check out which I highlighted on two cards (on page 4).  For Clock Buddies, go here.  For Collaboration Cards, go here.

You want some of these, don't ya?  OK.  Please become a follower of Me and My Gang and I Love 2 Teach if you're not already.  Like us on Facebook too...just look for our FB links on the right side.  If you're a blogger, then why don't you go ahead and grab our buttons while you're at it?
Grab the Grouping Cards for free {here}.